I’d love to hear your success stories and your horror stories. Leave a comment below!

On the Twitter website, go to the person’s profile and look for the time stamp on the tweet you’re linking. See the example above: “about 12 hours ago”. That will give you a page with just one tweet and nothing else. This way it’s very clear which tweet your referencing.

Lots of questions and topics came up in conversations due to the series. I’ll be posting more tips and tricks in the near future. If there’s something I can help you with, leave a comment below!

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix It Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

Every day, I tweet a This Day in History tidbit. That wasn’t a plan. I did it randomly a couple times and people started asking for it every day. I actually love doing it now, but it’s an obligation (I use that word in the best possible way). I let myself become obligated. Every day I wake up knowing I need to pick a historical item for that day. What if I could sit down and do all that at once and automate the process? I could do the thing I WANT to do, but free myself from the obligation.

I haven’t done it yet, but FutureTweets is the tool for scheduling a tweet that I plan to use.

Whether you’re wanting to schedule a company announcement, a birthday wish, or a link to a blog post, services like FutureTweets can make your life easier, one tweet at a time.

First, register for an account. You’ll then need to grant FutureTweets access to your Twitter account so it can post your messages. Once you’re in, click Schedule and write your post. Now, choose whether you want this tweet to be a one time tweet, or have it occur every week, month or year. For example, you might want to publicly tweet on your anniversary how much you love your wife or husband, fully aware that you’re likely to forget it’s your anniversary. FutureTweets will tell the world and maybe remind you that you’re romantically inclined.

Just choose the desired date and time of your tweet, and you’re done! If you decide you need to make a change to the tweet text or date, you’ll be able to edit it after it’s saved. Beware, though! It won’t ask you for confirmation if you click the delete button.

Obviously, you won’t want to use this for every single tweet, because spontaneity is good, but it’s a great tool for helping you use Twitter for effectively and efficiently.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix It Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

There’s been a lot of controversy lately about Twitter spam. I’ve already talked about the kind that we don’t have to want. The kind you can get rid of by unfollowing or blocking. Tonight though, I’m writing about something that many people might argue isn’t spam at all. It’s stuff in the gray area, and if it isn’t spam, at the very least, it’s Twitter pollution. You’ve seen it. It’s everywhere. Companies create a contest that encourages people to tweet with a branded hashtag. I’m a capitalist. I’m all about free speech, so I think if a company wants to do that, they should have the right to do it, but my hope is that the Twitter community will say no by not participating.

Twitter is a great place for community, and communities are a great place to do giveaways to promote a product or service. Giveaways are fun for community members, and get lots of attention for companies. If you spend more than five minutes a day on Twitter, I’m guessing you’ve seen multiple tweets with #squarespace and #moonfruit in them lately. The tweets have absolutely nothing to do with the companies Square Space or Moonfruit, though. The included hashtag is purely an effort to enter a contest put on by those companies to win something, and the rules typically specify that you can tweet about anything you want, as long as you include the branded hashtag.

In full disclosure, Square Space is coming on board as a new sponsor of GeekBrief.TV. While I like the service they provide, I don’t agree with any company using hashtag spam to create interest in a contest. If you’re one of the people who doesn’t think it’s specifically spam, I think you’ll agree that it does add clutter and confusion.

Now, I want to be clear on something. I love giveaways! I love the use of Twitter for giveaways. I just think there’s a better way.

I’ve use a service called TwitRand to do giveaways. I let everyone know I’ll be doing a giveaway in the next month (or whatever the time frame is … usually a Drobo). They have to be following me in order to enter, then I let TwitRand randomly pick a follower. I have nothing to do with the outcome, so I can’t be biased in picking a winner, and I don’t have to do any extra work in collecting information from the contest entries. It’s much cleaner and much simpler.

The downside to this option is it doesn’t get people involved. There are ways to get people involved that doesn’t clutter up the space, though. You could ask a trivia question, you could ask people to comment on something and pick the funniest response. You can also use TwitRand to pick a random person that has retweeted a particular phrase or keyword. There are many options that encourage your followers to be active without cluttering up Twitter and confusing people who aren’t clued into what’s going on.

When you’re building a business, the only thing that really matters is your reputation. MoonFuit and SquareSpace are good companies. Their Twitter spam damages them more than it helps. On Twitter, you want your message to be who you really are. Companies will always offer you incentives to be something different, but no amount of money is worth adding and abeding the twitter spammers.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on contests and Twitter. Leave a comment below!

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix It Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

Since I started the 12 Days of Twitter series, I’ve had conversations that have come up about Seesmic. Given the interest, and yesterday’s announcement from Seesmic, I decided to devote today’s Twitter Tip to them.

Seesmic has two free products – Seesmic Desktop, and Seesmic Browser, which was released yesterday. I mentioned Seesmic briefly in my post about TweetDeck. From that, you know I use and love TweetDeck. Before TweetDeck added multiple account support though, Seesmic was what I used to deal with multiple twitter accounts. I’m ultimately a TweetDeck girl, but whenever I suggest someone use TweetDeck, and they say it’s too much for them, I recommend Seesmic instead.

After many, many conversations, I get the impression the two applications appeal to completely different types of people. If you like TweetDeck, Seesmic might not meet your needs. If you like Seesmic, TweetDeck might come across as information overload. Both companies are doing a great job at appealing to their kind of user. I gave a run down of TweetDeck earlier. Today’s all about Seesmic, so let’s take a look at what they have to offer.

Seesmic Desktop

Seesmic Desktop uses columns for your Friends, Replies and Direct Messages. It’s fairly simple, while still offering the ability to include saved searches, rearrange your columns, and view the application in single or multiple columns.

Those of you who want simple and small can choose the Single Column view in the bottom left corner. You can also click the three arrows above Home to shrink your navigation menu.

When you’re ready to reply to someone or send a Direct Message, hover over their icon and hit the @ symbol to reply publicly, or the Mail icon to reply privately.

It also has Userlists, which are customized groups. You can group your personal friends in one userlist, your family members in another one and your co-workers in a third. Click the “+” icon in the left column beside “Userlists”, and name your group. To add people to a group, hover over their icon, click on the Gears icon and choose “Add to Userlist”.

Seesmic Browser

Yesterday, Seesmic released a new browser option. You don’t have to download a separate application. At first glance, it looks pretty similar to Seesmic Desktop with the Timeline and Mentions columns, but the single view button changes everything. Click that and you get a list of your messages in small rows down the page. Leena Rao from TechCrunch points out, that it looks very similar to the Gmail interface. I love that they’re thinking different. They’ve taken an interface and a format  so many of us love and they applied it to Twitter.

Just like Gmail, you’ll see a star beside the person’s name. This will add the tweet to your Favorites list, but I’ve been using it to mark tweets I need to respond to later. Once unstarred, it’ll be taken off your Favorites list.

You can click the message to see the person’s picture and respond. The other cool thing is Messages, where your DMs are kept. Your private conversations are threaded, so when someone sends you a Direct Message and you respond, you’ll see the entire conversation in one place…very nice!

I imagine they’ll be updating Seesmic Browser and adding a few more features in the near future. The Single Column feature on Browser is a huge plus for me, and one that I will encourage me to use Seesmic more often.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix It Up!
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

As Twitter quickly takes over the world, small and large businesses are seeing the need to have a presence on Twitter. Although it’s easy to see the need to be on Twitter, it can be difficult for both businesses and individuals to immediately understand what, when and how to tweet. People ask me all the time if they should get personal on Twitter, so let’s talk about that on today’s Twitter Tip.

The first thing to remember with any tip I give, is that it only matters if you are trying to build a network or audience. If you are just tweeting and don’t care if anyone follows you, then make your own rules!

For those of you who do care about building a network or making new friends, what should you tweet about? Obviously, you’ll want to talk about what interests you first and foremost. If you’re Gary Vee and you care about wine, you talk about wine, so it makes sense that Gary tweets about wine. If you’re a good VP of Marketing, hopefully you have a passion for marketing and it would make sense for you to tweet about marketing. I love technology and consumer electronics so I tweet tech and gadget news. Here’s the thing, though…I don’t just tweet links to new episodes of GeekBrief.TV on Twitter. I don’t just post information that I hope people find valuable. I don’t just post This Day in History tidbits. I don’t just post personal anecdotes. Gary Vee is interested in baseball, so he tweets about the Dodgers and the Mets. A VP of Marketing might also be a foodie, and if she is, she should tweet links to pictures of food from her favorite restaurant.

The combination of insight into someone’s life, promotion and valuable information is what works for a lot of us on Twitter (not to mention blogs and web shows), so mix it up!

Where the line becomes blurred for a lot of people is the question of how much personal is too personal. That’s obviously a question only you can answer, but remember future employers or your mother might read your Twitter stream. My best advice is to use the same self control as you do in the real world.

UPDATE: Please see my first comment below for additional thoughts.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

So far on the 12 Days of Twitter series, I’ve blogged about the how-tos and the don’t dos. I’d like to take a break from anything that looks like rules and show you five awesome things you can do with Twitter that might surprise you.

1) Did You Know You Can Automatically Tweet New Blog Posts?

If you’re a WordPress blogger, TwitterTools is my favorite WordPress plugin for Twitter. It gives you the option in each post to automatically post a link to Twitter when you hit the Publish button.

Step 1: Install and activate the Plugin (directions here)
Step 2: Update the settings

It’ll even give you the option of adding your tweets as a post on your blog. Take a look at all the options. It has a lot of potential.

2) Did You Know You Can Track a Package via Twitter?

To receive Direct Message updates on a FedEx, UPS, DHL or USPS package, start by following Twitter user TrackThis. Once they follow you back, you’ll be able to send a DM to TrackThis with your tracking number. Whenever your package reaches a new destination, you’ll get an update.

Step 1: Follow TrackThis
Step 2: Send a Direct Message with the tracking number, followed by a nickname for the package. Example: “D trackthis 09356676312 Kindle”

3) Did You Know You Can Use Twitter to Update Google Calendar?

You can connect your Twitter account and your Google Calendar to add events to your calendar by Direct Message. It’s like having a personal assistant!

Step 1: Follow the instructions at Twittercal.com to get set up
Step 2: Send a Direct Message to gcal to enter a new calendar appointment. Example: “D gcal meeting with John P at Twisted Root on Saturday July 10 at 1:00 PM”

4) Did You Know You Can Use Twitter as an Alarm Clock?

You can use Twitter as a way to get reminders for appointments, phone calls, etc. Start by following Twitter user Timer. Once they follow you back, you’ll be able to send a DM to Timer with your request. When it’s time for your appointment, you’ll get a reminder. It will work best if you turn on SMS updates for Timer so you actually get audibly pinged when you’re away from your computer.

Step 1: Follow Timer
Step 2: Send a Direct Message. Include when you want the reminder (30 minutes from now) and the message for yourself. Example: “D timer 30 Go to Fry’s”

In 30 minutes, you’ll receive a Direct Message with a reminder to “go to Fry’s”.

5) Did You Know You Can Visually See What Your Friends are Doing?

TwitterForBusyPeople.com gives you a more visual view of your friends on Twitter. If you don’t have time to read all the tweets from everyone, let yourself browse by viewing just the latest tweet from people by hovering over their picture. It’s broken up into people who have tweeted in the last hour, the last day, or more than a day ago.

It’s a pretty awesome way to browse through tweets!

I have to give a shout out to Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration. He has even more tips in his very amazing Twitter Guide.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

We’ve talked about using Twitter with twitter.com and desktop applications. Today, let’s take a look at how you can continue the conversation even when you leave your desk and roam around the world.

SMS

To keep up with your Twitter friends on-the-go, you might want to take advantage of Twitter’s SMS Notifications, and receive a text message when someone you’re following tweets. The great thing about the service is that it’s an a la carte option. Even if you’re following 200 people, you can choose to only get text messages from 1, 7, or all 200 of those people. WARNING: Standard text messaging rates apply.

When you set up your Twitter account, go into Settings, then choose Devices. Here, you can set up your mobile phone number. It’ll give you a code and a number where you want text messages sent. Complete that step to verify your number and begin receiving messages.

If you’re already following a bunch of people, go to your following list at the top of your profile (click on “168 Following”). You’ll see each person you’re following listed with an icon beside their name that looks like a mobile phone. If it’s gray, you will NOT receive SMS alerts from that person. If it’s green, you WILL receive alerts. Click the icon to change the setting.

From here on out, when you follow someone new, you can specify whether you SMS notifications for that person immediately, rather than going back into your following list. Click on “Follow”, then choose “On” or “Off” under Device Updates.

Here are some helpful commands you can use from your mobile phone to turn updates on, off, or stop following someone.

Using SMS for Twitter Notifications

On = turns on ALL notifications on via SMS
On username = turns on notifications for just that user
Off = turns off ALL notifications on via SMS
Off username = turns off notifications for just that user
Stop/Quit = stops all phone notifications
Follow username = follows that user
Leave username = stops following that user

learn more about Twitter SMS

iPhone Apps

There are lots of iPhone apps to help keep you up to date when you can’t access your computer. Using an app means you can skip paying for SMS. There are two I love and use. Tweetie is $2.99. It’s simple and breaks up All Tweets, @Replies and DMs into tabs for easy viewing.

TweetDeck is free and syncs your Groups and Searches between your desktop app and your iPhone. The interface is beautiful, and breaks up your Tweets, @Replies and DMs into different pages rather than tabs.

UPDATE: Since I don’t use other phones, please feel free to comment below on your favorite non-iPhone mobile phone apps!

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

Why should you use Twitter Search?
For a lot of people, using Twitter is about connecting with other people. One of the best ways to find people to connect to who have similar interests, is Twitter Search. It lets you track a keyword (or keywords), and will show you all the tweets from everywhere in the world that include that keyword. Let’s take a look at two main reasons you might want to use Twitter Search.

In today’s example, you’re a software developer. It’s a good thing to imagine being, even if you can’t code! You’ve just released an application called Banana Seeds that makes it possible for skateboard store owners to create custom iPhone app so their customers can see what skateboards are in stock. You’re getting great feedback via email from your customers, but you want to know what people are saying about it on Twitter so you can provide better customer service and respond to complaints as well as complements. You set up a Twitter Search using Boolean search for “Banana AND Seeds”. To understand Boolean search better, click here. You’ll now see every tweet about your software, and you can respond to comments quickly and easily, and hopefully build a loyal customer base.

Now, let’s switch gears and imagine you’re someone who just loves skateboarding. You spend time reading skateboarding news, you watch 64mm whenever a new episode is released, and you write a blog about skateboarding. You want to connect with other people who love skateboarding, so you set up a Twitter Search. Immediately, you can see thousands of people around the world who have a common interest. When someone says something interesting and you have something interesting to say back to them, hit the reply button and start a conversation.

How to use Twitter Search
I explained on an earlier post how to use Twitter Search in TweetDeck, a desktop application (watch the video for a demonstration). To summarize, most desktop applications will have the ability to add a search. Find that feature and search for your keyword. If the subject you’re interested in is two or more words, like “Harry Potter,” I suggest adding two searches. One, a Boolean Search like I talked about above – “Harry AND Potter.” Two, put the two words together – “HarryPotter.” Making two words one will ensure you grab any hashtags about the subject.

If you’re not using a separate application for Twitter, you can search directly from the Twitter website. Look for the Search box on the right side of the page. If you want to keep coming back to the search to get updates, click on “Save this Search.” Your searches will be saved directly under the search box.

For more advanced searches, you can head on over to search.twitter.com.

UPDATE 7/7/09: If you’re interested in finding people or events happening locally to you, just enter the search “location:Dallas”, and of course change out “Dallas” to your city or state.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

When people first sign up for Twitter, they have a tendency to get a little excited and make some mistakes. Today’s Twitter Tip includes three of the most common mistakes made by newbies.

1) Auto Replying New Followers
There are services that allow you to send an automated direct message when someone follows you. Everyone has probably gotten a DM that you immediately can recognize as a bulk message. “Thanks for following me! I make monetizing your blog easy. You can find out more at www.exampleblog.com.”

If I follow you and I get an auto-DM, I will immediately unfollow you. A lot of people think I’m being harsh, but here’s why I do it. If I’m following you, it’s because of something you said, or I already know who you are and what you do. I don’t want to be spammed, and that’s exactly what that kind of message is…SPAM.

If you continue saying interesting things, you will make me want to find out more about you. I will click on your profile and follow the link to your website. It’s more work on your part to make me interested and get me to your site, but ultimately it’s marketing that matters.

2) Adding hashtags to every post, or too many hashtags in a single post
Hashtags are great and very useful for tracking conversations about a subject you’re interested in. Use them when it matters. You don’t have to include a hashtag in every post. More importantly, you don’t have to fill your tweet with hashtags. Let’s look at an example. I tweeted this the other day:

Cool!! I just noticed the last WordPress update made the theme editor more like a regular HTML editor (numbered lines & colored code).

Since the tweet was about WordPress, and that’s the main subject, it would have been good for me to make WordPress a hashtag (my mistake!):

Cool!! I just noticed the last #WordPress update made the theme editor more like a regular HTML editor (numbered lines & colored code).

Unfortunately, I’ve seen tweets that look like this:

Cool!! I just noticed the last #WordPress #update made the #theme #editor more like a regular #HTML editor (numbered lines & colored #code).

Whoa!!! Too much. First of all, trying to read that breaks my concentration and may cause me to have to re-read a tweet to understand what the person is trying to say. Secondly, it tells me either you’re a newbie and just don’t fully understand what hashtags are for, OR, you’re trying to hashtag-spam your way into people’s searches.

Use hashtags when you think others might be interested in the subject you’re tweeting about. Make them count!

3) Over-tweeting
I did a tutorial of TweetDeck, and in it you hear me call some people “hyper-tweeters.” Hyper-tweeters are people who tweet too much. It seems like they find something to say every couple minutes. It can be overwhelming for your followers, and will often lead to people unfollowing you. The same thing goes for too many @replies or Retweets. Keep in mind that your followers might not be following the person you’re @replying, so if they want to know what the heck you’re talking about and be a part of the conversation, they’ll need to click through to that person’s profile to see what that person said to you.

When I tweet more than five times in a day, I start to get uncomfortable.

Unless I’m providing (what I hope is) valuable content in 6+ posts, I try to stay at or under five. Please don’t take my number as a hard fast rule for you. My limit is based on my gut and watching the response of my followers. It could be very different for you. Listen to people’s reactions, and occasionally look at your Twitter stats (Twitter Counter). If you notice you’re loosing followers, one reason may be that you’re tweeting too much.

I want to point out one thing. If you’re on Twitter for yourself, and you don’t care about building a network, then there is no such thing as over-tweeting. Say what you want, any time you want!

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

Follow to increase conversations, not to increase numbers

One of the most common questions I get from new Twitter users is “How do I decide who to follow?” People also ask how many people they follow and if they should follow everyone who follows them.

Who you decide to follow is a very personal decision, and it needs to be based on what you want out of your Twitter experience. There are a few schools of thought:

1) Follow everyone who follows you
The natural assumption is that if someone is following you, they’re following you for a reason. They know you or want to know you. Maybe they read your blog. Or, you tweeted something they found interesting and want to hear more. Remember, people follow search words to find others who have similar interests. If you find yourself wondering how all these people are finding you, it’s likely that they track a word or phrase you tweeted about.

You may decide that if someone is following you, you’d like to know what they’re saying as well. This could help you to participate in the Twitter conversation easier. Unfortunately following some people comes with a major downside. Some people follow you so they can sell you things.

A couple days ago I wrote a post about Twitter and SPAM. For the most part, you only should get SPAM on Twitter from a follower once. If someone SPAMs you, unfollow them, if that doesn’t end it, block them.

2) Follow only friends, family, and co-workers
If you’re on Twitter to keep up with the the analog people in your life, and you have no interest in connecting with new digital people, you’ll probably wind up only following your friends, family and co-workers. If you’re not trying to build a network, Twitter has an option that keeps your Tweets private.

3) Follow no more than a couple hundred people
It’s very difficult to actually pay attention to more than a couple hundred people at a time on Twitter. A river of correspondence is one thing. Trying to keep up with more than a couple hundred people turns the information overload from a river into a tsunami. The good news is that you don’t have to follow someone to have a conversation with them. It’s possible to continue having conversations with other Twitter users, without following each of them because of Replies/Mentions, Direct Messages, and Twitter Search.

I choose the third way. Now if you look at my stats, you’ll see I’m following 4,000+ people. TweetDeck’s Groups feature allows me to pay close attention to about 150 people. The other 4,000+ people I follow are people who talk to me on a consistent basis. Not every conversation needs to be a public conversation, and following people who talk back regularly gives them the ability to send me Direct Messages (you cannot DM someone who isn’t following you).

The point is … there are no hard and fast rules. Following too many people can make you look like a spammer, but ultimately … follow anyone who adds value to your Twitter experience.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(What the heck are the 12 days of Twitter?)

We all know people who can come home from a long day at work, remember every funny thing that happened, and shape it into a funny, interesting story. Over the course of the next week, they can re-tell the anecdote over and over to different people and their great story gets more funny time after time. Then…there’s the rest of us.

The rest of us see, hear, or have something funny happen to us, but not being those anecdote type of people … we leave it behind. If you’re my sister, you always have a great story to tell. If you’re me, you can’t quite recall any of the good ones and that’s why we need Twitter.

When something happens in your daily life that is funny, interesting, or just plain wacky, leave your pride behind, don’t put it off… post it on Twitter! It can be the start of many, many great conversations.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter for a while, you may remember a few times when I appeared to be tweeting about nothing. What I was really doing was sharing funny stories and getting a conversation moving around the Web.

One day I was shopping in the grocery section of my local Target. I noticed they had grape samples individually packaged in plastic containers. I thought it was weird, goofy…maybe a little wasteful, but more than anything… funny. I took a picture and tweeted it. My Twitter followers had fun with that all day long.

The next example started a conversation that initiated a flood of responses.

“Neal bought a ceiling fan online. It weighs at least 50 pounds. I’m sure it’s going to fall, and that’s how we’re going to die.”

As I read through the responses, I got twenty minutes of free and awesome entertainment. Some made me laugh…

Humanoide: @CaliLewis I can see the headline already: “Cali Lewis killed by one of her fan”…

…and some made me feel a little curious about people’s experiences.

AVonGauss: @CaliLewis From personal experience, unfortunately, I can say falling ceiling fan in the middle of the night is not fatal.

Remember, you don’t just have to be a knowledge source or just talk to your family on Twitter. Sharing your anecdotes can add value and entertainment to your Twitter experience.

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

(learn more about the 12 days of Twitter)

You can have a conversation on a mobile phone, or you can have a conversation on a landline. One phone might make the conversation better, while another makes it completely frustrating (filled with static). Twitter is the conversation, and the Twitter team opened their framework so that different developers can build applications to make the conversation a better experience.

Some people use Twitter passively by following one or a few people with the sole desire of taking information in without participating. If that’s you, the Twitter website will be all you need. However, Twitter becomes more interesting when you have active conversations with hundreds or thousands of people. For that, you’ll want to use a desktop application. There are several free options (Tweetie, Seesmic, Twhirl, Twitterific), but after trying them all, I choose TweetDeck.

TweetDeck won my favor immediately because the design was beautiful and simple. Since launch, TweetDeck has added feature after feature that increased my ability to manage thousands of conversations.

Here’s what I love:

Columns
TweetDeck was the first application I saw to sort information into columns, and it makes a huge difference in managing conversations. Choose up to 10 columns from the options at the top of the application:

All Friends – Lists all updates from every person you follow

Mentions – Lists any tweet from anyone, whether you follow them or not, that includes @username. It’s a great way to make sure you have the opportunity to respond to any tweet directed to you or any tweet about you. *Please note: in the video I refer to this as @Replies. The name since changed to Mentions.

Direct Messages – Lists all private, direct messages (or DMs)

Group – Gives you the ability to separate your list of friends into groups. One example of how to use this is to make one group for your personal friends and family, and one group for co-workers. Once you have a group set up, you can edit by single clicking on the name of the group. It will open another column to edit who is in that group.

Twitter Search – This is an important one!!! Use this to track a keyword, or keywords, that are important to you. Want to know what people are saying about you or your business? Twitter Search. Want to know what people are saying about Harry Potter, knitting, or the latest episode of True Bood? Twitter Search.

TwitScoop – A look at what the hot topics are right now on Twitter. A “cloud tag” is a graphic representation of popularity. The bigger the word is, the more popular the topic.

Facebook Status Updates – Integrate Twitter and Facebook. See your Facebook Friend’s updates along with your Twitter friends.

Single Column View

If you’re multitasking and need to take up less screen real estate, choose the Single Column View.

Multiple Accounts

This is a fairly new feature, and it makes TweetDeck even more valuable! Manage your business account and your personal account without having to log out and in again.

Shorten URL

When you need to save characters in your tweet, you can use the URL shortener to collapse a long URL and make it shorter. You can choose your favorite URL shortener service.

Upload a Photo

You’ve probably seen a lot of twitpic links out there. You can use the Upload a Photo button to make it easy to post photos without having to upload one and then link to it yourself.

Recent Hashtags

Hashtags tell the world that a tweet is about a particular subject, and allows people to track conversations about that subject easily. To set up a search for tracking a hashtag, just use the Twitter Search feature. If your business is online, you’ll want to actively follow hashtags relating to your business. The same applies if you care what people might be saying about you personally on Twitter.

Recent Hashtags allow you to use hashtags you’ve used in the past on a tweet without remembering or looking them up.

Hover for More Options

When you’re ready to respond to people and do more, hover your mouse over a person’s picture You’ll find four main buttons:

@reply
Direct Message
Retweet
Options

Click on Options, and you get more choices:
User
–Add to Group – Add this person to an existing group
–Follow – If you’re not following this person, click to add to your friends
–Unfollow – Don’t like someone anymore? Unfollow.
–Block – This will block you from seeing someone’s tweets, @replies or DMs. You’ll never see them again. Great for spammers!

Tweet
–Translate – Translate foreign tweets so you can read them
–Mark as Read - Mark a single tweet as read
–Delete – Delete a single tweet

Column Specific Options

For each column, you’ll see these buttons at the bottom:

Cloud Tag – See what’s popular in that column

Filter – When you’re looking for a particular tweet or subject, you can use the Filter to temporarily “search” through that column

Mark All As Seen – I love this feature. When I’ve caught up with my tweet reading, I mark everything as seen so I know what’s new when I come back

Clear Seen Tweets – This will wipe out everything that’s seen so it doesn’t even show up in TweetDeck

Clear All Tweets - Clear everything, whether it’s marked as seen or new

Move Left/Right - Organize your columns in the order you want

Here’s a video I produced earlier this year that demonstrates how to use TweetDeck:

When you install any desktop application for Twitter, you might be asked to install something called Adobe AIR. It enables people to develop applications that will work on any operating system, so a developer with a great idea can make that application available to everyone. It’s a trustworthy download, so don’t be worried if you see this pop up.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

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Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 1: The Secret Code: What are all those initials and symbols?
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

12 Days of Twitter :: Day 1

(learn more about the 12 days of Twitter)

Twitter can be overwhelming to understand. When you get past the question Why would I want to use Twitter, there are still a lot of Twitter-specific abbreviations (some borrowed from the web, chat and SMS) that confuse people when they jump into the world of Twitter.

Twitter Terms
tweet = A single message on Twitter, up to 140 characters

@reply = a response to a specific person – If you want to send a message that you know I’ll see, you put @calilewis anywhere in your 140 character message and I’ll see it. It’s a public message, just like your regular tweets that anyone following you will see, but it addresses a specific person.  I can then reply back by @replying you or sending you a DM.

DM = Direct Message – This is how you talk to specific people privately. Unlike an @reply, no one will see a DM but you and the person you send it to. To avoid spam, you are only able to send a Direct Message to someone who is already following you. To send someone a DM, you can type D username (remember the space) at the beginning of your message. There is a Direct Messages link on the right side of the Twitter pages. If you don’t click that link, you won’t see when people have DM’d you.

RT = Retweet – It’s a way of quoting someone else of Twitter. You like what they said, and you want to pass it on.

On the Web, you’ll need to manually copy and paste someone’s tweet and put “RT username” in front

On a Desktop Application, usually you can hover over a user’s picture and find a symbol, like the straight arrow in this screenshot:

# = Hashtag – A hastag is a single keyword with the # sign in front. It tells the world that this tweet is about a particular subject or event. It allows people to follow a subject easily.

Borrowed from Chat/SMS

Here are some common abbreviations borrowed from SMS, Chat and the Web that I see on Twitter quite often. This is just a short list of possible abbreviations. For a more exhaustive list, click here.

L8R = Later
<3 = Love (it’s a sideways heart…just stare at it for a moment!)
BRB = Be Right Back
FWIW = For What It’s Worth
IDK = I Don’t Know
PPL = People
TTYL = Talk To You Later
WDYK = What Do You Know

Borrowed from the Web
NSFW = Not Safe For Work
IMHO = In My Humble Opinion
WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get
WTF = What The *beep*
TMI = Too Much Information
ROTFL = Roll On The Floor Laughing

I’ll be talking about TweetDeck on the next post.

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Introduction to the 12 Days of Twitter
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

Twitter’s homepage says “What are you doing?”. This is the question you’re supposed to answer. I kept asking “why the heck would I want to tell the world what I’m doing right this very minute?” I hear it again and again directly from people who watch GeekBrief.TV and from people talking about Twitter on TV and radio. Why would I want to tell everyone that I’m about to jump in the shower, or eating macaroni and cheese, or putting on my shoes in the morning? Even if I wanted to tell the world these things, why would anyone even care? What good could possibly come out of tweeting?

It was friends of Geek Brief that converted me. Viewers would email me and ask me to sign up, and I kept replying “No way! I don’t want the responsibility of having to come up with something clever every day. I know I won’t use it very much, so what’s the point?”. Then, someone said they’d like to know via Twitter when I’ve posted a new episode of the show. That sounded reasonable. I could understand using Twitter to do that. I slowly began to see the value of Twitter, and one day soon after beginning to use it, I fell in love.

My best advice? Ignore the question. Twitter isn’t about describing your lunch (unless it’s funny or interesting enough to share). It’s about participating in a community that could be good for either your business or your social life.

How?

If you use Twitter with your heart in the right place (i.e. no spamming), it can be an extremely valuable resource for you and/or your business. I get asked all the time about how to get the most out of Twitter, so I decided to do a series of blog posts to answer all the questions I get, and share what I’ve learned. I’m calling the series 12 Days of Twitter, and I’ll start tomorrow. The series will include tips, tricks, rules and tools. I hope it helps to fill in some of the gaps about why there is all this fuss about Twitter!

Follow Cali Lewis on Twitter

Read More

Day 1: The Secret Twitter Code
Day 2: Use TweetDeck to Manage Conversations
Day 3: Share Your Funny Anecdotes While They’re Still Funny
Day 4: Follow Responsibly
Day 5: 3 Newbie Mistakes Made by New Tweeters
Day 6: Use Twitter Search to Connect and Find
Day 7: Twitter Mobile
Day 8: Five Awesome Things You Can Do with Twitter
Day 9: Mix it Up!
Day 10: If You’re Not a TweetDeck, You Might Be a Seesmic
Day 11: Twitter for Prizes and Profit
Day 12: Schedule Tweets in Advance

I’ve been using TweetDeck for a long time, and have been getting a lot of questions about how to get the most out of it. This is a quick tutorial showing the features and shortcuts in TweetDeck.

Download TweetDeck
Follow Cali on Twitter

You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. Steve Snowball Saylor used our promo codes to register GeorgeLucasHasLostHisMind.com

UPDATE: I’ve gotten several questions about what software I used to create this tutorial. It’s an awesome app called Screen Flow.